Prague Day 6 - ... And after all, you're my Hunger Wall ...

Post by Teresa
Photos by Elaine and Teresa
The day starts at Strahov Monastary where we have an excellant breakfast on the grounds. We decide that the best place to start is the miniature exhibit - not to sure why this was at the monastary to be honest. But anyway, it is wild - you enter this room full of microscopes. At each station there are thing like: a carved metal caravan of camels within the eye of a needle; an actual flea that is shodded with gold (or maybe bronze) horseshoes; jungle animals on the antennae of a mosquito.
We then headed to the library, which unfortunately did not allow pictures. This was another example of wood carved mouldings and barouque guilding, frescos on the ceiling, not to mention rows upon rows of really old books. There is also some interesting insect and animal exhibits, where I managed to covertly take this photograph (OK I didn't know the rules at this point - really). Bet you can't guess what it is:



After taking a look at the chapple, we took a stroll along the Hunger Wall. This is a tree lined walk along a wall thats construction was implemented to provide paid work for starving masses. The wall is one of the first lines of defense for Prague castle, it is a fortification and station for archers built around the 1380's.
At the end of the wall there is a public park and grounds which includes a mini eiffel-like tower which was a gift from France to Prague. Elaine and I climbed the tower to get a great 360 degree view of the city. We also went through the mirror maze before leaving.
We took the funnicular down ( a trolley like tram) from the top of the hill and carried on back to old town to do some final panic/power shopping. At this point we are feeling very familiar with Prague, despite my bad sense of direction.
This takes us back to the hotel before where we proactively pack our bags before heading out to our final destination - Beer Fest! At this point I have sampled several of the finest lagers/ales/stout that the Czech Republic has to offer, and I can confirm that yes, they are very good. The festival was at the exhibition grounds, which also seems to be more like a fair grounds. But hey, it is Europe, and I guess beer drinking is more of a family event here. It is opening night, and a Thursday, so the first tent we went to seemed kind of slow. However, we did make at least one new friend:



We tried some Czech cuisine - Ev the garlic soup, El and I the bratwurst, some beer and a Pear spirit:


We moved on to the other tents in much the same manner, sampling beer, food and deserts. Each tent had a different brewery sponser, food provided by one of the locally renowned chefs, and live music. It is interesting to note that the Czechs love the Oasis song 'Wonderwall'. Whenever the band seemed to get tired, they would strum a few opening chords of the song and the crowd would take over. This happened on at least two occassions in the last tent alone. We decided to depart, when I learned an interesting and rather personal fact about the Ong girls. Despite being true Saskatchewanians, it seems that they have never had the experience of take true advantage of the great outdoors. Lets just say the public washrooms at the train stations close early, and Elaine has something new she can cross off her list.